Does astrology only work with famous murder cases or does it also work with big lottery winners? At random, I picked a lottery winner from the 251 records collected in the Astrodatabank that met the Event Group criteria of "Financial" and "Gain significant money". Linda Baldwin was a private person who won a million dollars on 9/30/1989, a week before her wedding. Having been born in Massachusetts, astrologer Frances McEvoy was able to obtain a copy of her birth certificate.

I confirmed the event in Google's newspaper archive:

news service report on Oct. 2, 1989:

Bride-to-be hits jackpot

BRAINTREE, Mass. -- The wedding present Linda Baldwin is getting from the state lottery isn't just another coffee-maker.

Baldwin, 31, of Braintree, was one of three winners in Saturday's Massachusetts Megabucks drawing. Her winning ticket will be good for $1,065,960, or $53,298 each year before taxes, lottery spokesman Dave Ellis said. The total jackpot was $3,197,880.

"This is really going to make a big difference in our lives," Ellis quoted Baldwin as saying. She is to be married Sunday.

Unlike in the infamous cases of Scott and Laci Peterson and Charles Whitman, we do not have any birth information for the lottery winner's immediate family. So we cannot look at transits to any composite chart involving the winner's husband or parents. However, we will find plenty of astrological drama if we start with Linda's solar arc directions for September 30, 1989.

Solar Arc Directions

This technique involves taking all of the planets of the natal chart, rotating them by the amount of the progressed Sun's movement since birth, and then comparing their new positions to the natal chart. Especially if there is a close aspect or configuration in the natal chart, it is important to see when this aspect configuration will rotate to contact a point in the natal chart. In Linda's case, there are actually three tight patterns or aspects in the natal chart that were all activated when she won the lottery. Note the tight T-Square pattern of Uranus, Chiron, and focus planet Mercury in the inner circle, which is Linda's natal chart. This T-Square pattern rotated such that as of September 30, 1989, solar arc directed Uranus in the outer circle had moved from squaring natal Mercury to, at 17Vir09, exactly sextiling natal Mercury at 17Sco09. Solar arc directed Mercury moved to trine natal Uranus and Chiron moved to trine natal Mercury. Another close aspect in the natal chart is Moon opposite Venus, with an orb of 0 deg. 39 min. Solar arc directions caused this opposition to rotate such that Venus and the Moon were both closely aligned with natal Mars - a suitable time for getting married. Finally, we see that Linda was born with Sun conjunct Neptune with a 1 deg. orb and that when she won the lottery, the solar arc directed Ascendant and Midheaven conjoined and squared her Sun-Neptune conjunction. It helped her lottery-winning potential that in her natal chart, Pluto exactly sextiles the Sun-Neptune conjunction. The timing for Linda to realize all of this natal potential for good fortune was when her chart patterns became aligned by solar arc direction.

Major Progressions and Transits to Natal

The natal chart is in the inner circle, the progressed planets are in the middle circle, and the transiting planets are in the outer circle. There are some favorable transits and progressions, but they are not as dramatic as seen in the solar arc directions. Note that there is an exact opposition between transiting Jupiter and transiting Neptune and that these transiting planets are respectively trine and sextile Linda's natal Jupiter. In regard to the progressed planets, the closest aspect is progressed Neptune semisextile the natal Sun, which is delineated below. We see that earlier in the year she went through the life-changing progression of progressed Sun square Pluto.

Solar Return Chart

With her birthday on October 27, almost a whole year has gone by since Linda's previous solar return. I don't see anything significant in the old solar return, but Linda Baldwin's solar return chart for October 26, 1989 is timed such that Saturn/Neptune is aligned with the Tenth House and opposes Jupiter aligned with the Fourth House. The money expands her home living situation while adding responsibility and confusion to her interaction with the world at large. It is incredible to realize that the timing of all the solar returns for a person's life are preestablished at the moment of their birth. The only variable is that the house cusp alignments are determined by where the person chooses to reside during that year.

Lunar Return Chart

Linda Baldwin's lunar return chart for the month starting September 17, 1989 looks a lot like the solar return that will take place in October. Since both return charts feature mid-Aries rising, Jupiter is conjunct the Fourth House cusp and Neptune and Saturn are conjunct the Tenth House cusp of this chart also.

Primary Directions

Primary directions are slow movements of the planets in the chart. They can relate to events within a year of their occurence. When you run the Classical Primary Directions with Latitude list for Linda Baldwin, the two aspects that are closest to September 30, 1989 both involve a semisextile aspect between Venus and Neptune.

Journey Progressions appears to be quite correct when it says that a favorable Venus-Neptune aspect can correlate with money coming from unusual or mysterious sources.

Hermetic Minor Progressed Chart

Hermetic Minor Progressions are calculated maintaining the same distance between the Minor Progressed Moon and the transiting Sun as exists between the natal Moon and natal Sun, according to the method taught by Elbert Benjamine (pen name C.C. Zain) of the Brotherhood of Light. They are used to time more short-term action. This chart for Linda Baldwin is calculated for noon at the birthplace on September 30, 1989. It has a number of tight aspects, such as progressed Sun at 29Aqu01 trine progressed Midheaven at 28Lib37 which is conjunct natal Venus at 29Lib36, progressed Mercury at 07Pis06 opposing progressed Pluto at 07Vir03, and progressed Jupiter at 24Cap58 conjunct progressed Saturn at 25Cap06.

Tertiary Progressed Chart

Tertiary Progressions are also used to time more short-term action. The tertiary progressed chart is calculated for as many days after birth as there have been tropical months for the date to which you are progressing the chart. Financial astrologers find tertiary progressions helpful in picking stock market winners. Linda's tertiary progressed chart for this date shows strong winning indications. Progressed Uranus is conjunct the progressed Midheaven and both are trine to the progressed Sun and to natal Saturn. The prudence of Saturn can be seen in Linda taking the annual payout as opposed to a one-time lump sum. The progressed Moon at 17Gem51 trines natal Chiron at 17Aqu39. The Moon can represent the public and Chiron can represent healing.

Summation

Working astrologers try to follow something called 'the rule of three', in which they look for multiple indicators before they dare to make a prediction. They know that an isolated transit, progression, direction or indicator in a return chart can come and go with little effect. In this case, there were multiple indicators that Linda was due to experience a reward.

There is no guarantee that this experience caused Linda to live happily ever after. If we reincarnate enough times, we could experience all possible things, the consequences of which may gradually bring us wisdom.

Cases like this illustrate how the planetary energies work, and they verify the validity of the major astrological forecasting methods.